Assizes is a term chiefly used in England to signify the sessions of the courts held at Westminster prior to Magna Carta, but thereafter appointed by successive enactments to be held annually in every county. Twelve judges, who are members of the highest courts in England, twice in every year perform a circuit into all the counties into which the kingdom is divided (the counties being grouped into seven circuits), to hold these assizes, at which both civil and criminal cases are decided. Occasionally this circuit is performed a third time for the purpose of jail-delivery. In London and Middlesex, instead of circuits, courts of nisi prius are held. At the assizes all the justices of the peace of the county are bound to attend. Special commissions of assize are granted for inquest into certain causes.
Among the more important historic uses of the term assize are its application to any sitting or deliberative council, and its transference thence to their ordinances, decrees, or assessments. In the latter sense we have the Assizes of Jerusalem, a code of feudal laws formulated in 1099 under Godfrey of Bouillon; the Assizes of Clarendon (1166), of Northampton (1176), and of Woodstock (1184) ; also the assisoe venalium (1203), for regulating the prices of articles of common consumption; the Assize of Arms (1181), an ordinance for organizing the national militia, etc. Research Assizes
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Research Assizes